LAKE CITY — Every day, cars and school buses have to share the road with semi trucks driving through Missaukee County.
In the event these vehicles are involved in an accident, the county’s response is crucial to saving lives and containing any hazards that may spill onto the roadway. That is where training comes in handy.
Missaukee County’s first responders recently held a training exercise in the parking lot of Lake City High School to prepare for such a scenario.
Emergency medical services, firefighters and law enforcement worked through responding to a multi-vehicle accident involving a logging truck colliding with the driver’s side of a school bus carrying students. An SUV with a single passenger was also part of the accident scenario.
While such a scenario isn’t all too common in the county, Missaukee County Planning and Emergency Management Director Linda Hartshorne-Shafer said there is always that potential.
“Especially at Lake City Schools and McBain Schools, they are situated right on main roads and trucks with anything from logs to hazardous material pass by the schools every day,” she said. “The school busses are on the roads with various trucks every day too, so there’s potential for something to happen.”
“We’re lucky that it hasn’t, but that was the reason for the selection of this particular scenario.”
The high school parking lot was used to simulate the intersection of M-55 and Houghton Street in Lake City. Hartshorne-Shafer said a delay in response by emergency personnel was written into the scenario to make it seem as if it was taking place in the winter.
The exercise involved Missaukee County EMS, the sheriff’s department, Michigan State Police, and fire departments from Lake City, McBain, Lake Township and Merritt. Some staff from Lake City Area Schools and Naval Sea Cadets for the U.S.S. Michigan (SSGN727) Division acted as passengers on the school bus in need of medical attention.
Emergency managers from Wexford, Missaukee, Crawford and Leelanau counties evaluated the emergency personnel during the exercise.
One of the goals for the exercise was to train for potential hazards on the road, in this case, logs and fuel from the vehicles involved.
The SUV involved was also used to simulate an electric vehicle. Hartshorne-Shafer said emergency personnel have a different protocol for responding to electric vehicles versus gas vehicles.
This allowed the first responders to practice protocol that they don’t regularly use when responding to car accidents in the real world, she said.
One opportunity the scenario offered the emergency personnel is working together with other departments. Lake City Area Fire Department Chief Richard Bradley said practicing with emergency personnel helps build relationships and makes their overall operation go smoother.
Another thing Bradley highlighted was the importance of learning to operate under a unified command. This means each department responding to the accident works within its specialty under the command of one individual who receives all the information.
“The unified command needs to be improved upon in civilian agencies, especially in rural areas,” Bradley said. “They don’t get adequate training on it, so this is a good opportunity to utilize that.”
The training also gave emergency personnel the chance to work on divvying up responsibilities when responding to an accident. Wexford County Emergency Manager Randy Boike was in charge of evaluating the firefighters on their performance.
One thing he was impressed by was how Lake Missaukee Area Fire Department Chief David LaRoche led the group. Boike said he saw LaRoche realize he was reaching his capacity for the amount of information he could handle.
Instead of taking on too much responsibility, Boike said LaRoche called over another fire chief and tasked him with some of the responsibility. This ultimately helped LaRoche focus on another pressing matter and avoid slowing down, Boike said.
“He wanted to keep a full awareness on everything, so it’s knowing when to bring somebody in,” Boike said. “Even though you’re qualified to do all of what it is, you can only juggle so many balls.”
“It’s very good to see that in an exercise because sometimes in the field, in a real situation, sometimes you’re just overloaded.”
On the medical side, the exercise gave Missaukee EMS an opportunity to reinforce different skills. Missaukee EMS Paramedic Lt. Levi Gee said they worked on triaging and identifying people who needed immediate medical attention.
He said the exercise also got the EMS department thinking about how new technology could improve their response and what areas where additional training could come in handy.
“It gets us thinking about some of the things that maybe we don’t do as often and need to refresh on and develop training for,” Gee said.
Seeing how each department responded to the scene was Lake City Area Schools Superintendent Timothy Hejnal’s biggest takeaway. Hejnal said he and his administrative staff got to see the timing of how emergency personnel would respond to an accident from start to finish.
Seeing the scenario play out also got the staff thinking about other ways they could assist in an emergency situation such as a school bus accident, Hejnal said.
“It was good for us to talk through and build those mindsets and some of those pieces that will help us in the future,” Hejnal said.
One of Boike’s other takeaways was how to communicate information to the public in the event of an accident. He said information can get out quickly, especially with social media and being in a small community.
To ensure accurate information gets out, he said they would look to release a quick statement with basic information about whatever the situation is. As more things come in, he said a longer statement later in the day can be made.
This quick statement helps keep people informed and prevents any misinformation from spreading, Boike said. He added there’s also a good chance people will follow local media for additional updates, knowing that they’ll come in later, rather than seeking potentially false information elsewhere.
With the exercise complete, the next step for Missaukee County is to take the feedback from participants in the exercise and develop an action plan and improvement report for the state. Hartshorne-Shafer said those reports help improve their response to any real-life accidents and planning for future exercises.
Boike said he will also be able to use what he saw to help improve Wexford’s response to an accident and with any exercise they may look to do in the future.
